The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Julian and Maddalo; a Conversation.
• The Witch of Atlas.
• Letter to —
• The Triumph of Life.
• Fragments From an Unfinished Drama.
• Prince Athanase: a Fragment.
• Ode to Naples. *
• Marianne’s Dream.
• Mont Blanc. Lines Written In the Vale of Chamouni.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci, In the Florentine Gallery.
• Song.
• To Constantia, Singing.
• The Fugitives.
• A Lament.
• The Pine Forest of the Cascine, Near Pisa.
• To Night.
• Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.
• Arethusa.
• The Question.
• Lines to an Indian Air.
• Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.
• Autumn: a Dirge.
• Hymn of Apollo.
• Hymn of Pan.
• The Boat On the Serchio.
• The Zucca. *
• The Two Spirits. an Allegory.
• A Fragment.
• A Bridal Song.
• The Sunset.
• Song, On a Faded Violet.
• Lines to a Critic.
• Good Night.
• To-morrow.
• Death.
• A Lament.
• Love’s Philosophy.
• To E*** V***
• To —
• Lines.
• To William Shelley.
• An Allegory.
• Mutability.
• From the Arabic. an Imitation.
• To —
• Music.
• Lines.
• Death.
• To —
• Passage of the Apennines.
• To Mary —
• The Past.
• Song of a Spirit.
• Liberty.
• To —
• The Isle.
• To —
• Time.
• Lines.
• A Song.
• The World’s Wanderers.
• A Dirge.
• Lines.
• Dirge For the Year.
• Sonnet I.
• Sonnet II. Political Greatness.
• Sonnet III.
• Sonnet IV.
• Fragments.
• Ginevra. *
• Charles the First. Fragments.
• Prince Athanase. Part II.
• Mazenghi. *
• The Woodman and the Nightingale.
• To the Moon.
• Song For Tasso.
• The Waning Moon.
• Epitaph.
• Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude.
• Translations.
• Hymn to Mercury. Translated From the Greek of Homer
• The Cyclops; a Satyric Drama.
• Translation From Moschus.
• Scenes From the “magico Prodigioso” of Calderon.
• Scenes From the Faust of GoËthe.

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

• • Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
  • Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth
  • Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask
• • Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth—
  • The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
  • Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth
• • Of light, the Ocean’s orison arose,
  • To which the birds tempered their matin lay.
  • All flowers in field or forest which unclose
• • Their trembling cyelids to the kiss of day,
  • Swinging their censers in the element,
  • With orient incense lit by the new ray
• • Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent
  • Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air;
  • And, in succession due, did continent,
• • Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear
  • The form and character of mortal mould,
  • Rise as the sun their father rose, to bear
• • Their portion of the toil, which he of old
  • Took as his own and then imposed on them:
  • But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
• • Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
  • The cone of night, now they were laid asleep
  • Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
• • Which an old chesnut flung athwart the steep
  • Of a green Apennine: before me fled
  • The night; behind me rose the day; the deep
• • Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head,
  • When a strange trance over my fancy grew
  • Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
• • Was so transparent, that the scene came through
  • As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
  • O’er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
• • That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,
  • Bathed in the same cold dew my brow and hair,
  • And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
• • Under the self same bough, and heard as there
  • The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold
  • Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air,
  • And then a vision on my brain was rolled.
• • As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay,
  • This was the tenour of my waking dream:—
  • Methought I sate beside a public way
• • Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream
  • Of people there was hurrying to and fro,
  • Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
• • All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
  • Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
  • He made one of the multitude, and so
• • Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky
  • One of the million leaves of summer’s bier;
  • Old age and youth, manhood and infancy
• • Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
  • Some flying from the thing they feared, and some
  • Seeking the object of another’s fear;
• • And others as with steps towards the tomb,
  • Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
  • And others mournfully within the gloom
• • Of their own shadow walked and called it death;
  • And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
  • Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:
• • But more with motions, which each other crost,
  • Pursued or spurned the shadows the clouds threw,
  • Or birds within the noon-day ether lost,
• • Upon that path where flowers never grew,
  • And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,
  • Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew
• • Out of their mossy cells for ever burst;
  • Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
  • Of grassy paths and wood, lawn-interspersed,
• • With over-arching elms and caverns cold,
  • And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
  • Pursued their serious folly as of old.
• • And as I gazed, methought that in the way
  • The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
  • When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,
• • And a cold glare, intenser than the noon,
  • But icy cold, obscured with [blinding] light
  • The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon
• • When on the sunlit limits of the night
  • Her white shell trembles amid crimson air,
  • And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might,
• • Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear
  • The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim frown
  • Bends in dark ether from her infant’s chair,—
• • So came a chariot on the silent storm
  • Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
  • So sate within, as one whom years deform,
• • Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,
  • Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,
  • And o’er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape
• • Was bent, a dun and faint etherial gloom
  • Tempering the light upon the chariot beam;
  • A Janus-visaged shadow did assume
• • The guidance of that wonder-winged team;
  • The shapes which drew in thick lightnings
  • Were lost:—I heard alone on the air’s soft stream
• • The music of their ever-moving wings.
  • All the four faces of that charioteer
  • Had their eyes banded; little profit brings
• • Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,
  • Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun
  • Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere
• • Of all that is, has been or will be done;
  • So ill was the car guided—but it past
  • With solemn speed majestically on.
• • The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,
  • Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
  • And saw, like clouds upon the thunders blast,
• • The million with fierce song and maniac dance
  • Raging around—such seemed the jubilee
  • As when to meet some conqueror’s advance
• • Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
  • From senate house, and forum, and theatre,
  • When [] upon the free
• • Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.
  • Nor wanted here the just similitude
  • Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er
• • The chariot rolled, a captive multitude
  • Was driven;—all those who had grown old in power
  • Or misery,—all who had their age subdued
• • By action or by suffering, and whose hour
  • Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
  • So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;—
• • All those whose fame or infamy must grow
  • Till the great winter lay the form and name
  • Of this green earth with them for ever low;—
• • All but the sacred few who could not tame
  • Their spirits to the conquerors—but as soon
  • As they had touched the world with living flame,
• • Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
  • Or those who put aside the diadem
  • Of earthly thrones or gems []
• • Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem,
  • Were neither mid the mighty captives seen,
  • Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,
• • Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.
  • The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
  • Who lead it—fleet as shadows on the green,
• • Outspeed the chariot, and without repose
  • Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
  • To savage music, wilder as it grows,
• • They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,
  • Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
  • Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure
• • Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
  • Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;
  • And in their dance round her who dims the sun,
• • Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
  • As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now
  • Bending within each other’s atmosphere
• • Kindle invisibly—and as they glow,
  • Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
  • Oft to their bright destruction come and go,
• • Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
  • That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
  • And die in rain—the fiery band which held
• • Their natures, snaps—the shock still may tingle;
  • One falls and then another in the path
  • Senseless—nor is the desolation single,
• • Yet ere I can say where—the chariot hath
  • Past over them—nor other trace I find
  • But as of foam after the ocean’s wrath
• • Is spent upon the desart shore;—behind,
  • Old men and women foully disarrayed,
  • Shake their grey hairs in the insulting wind,
• • To seek, to [[         ]], to strain with limbs decayed,
  • Limping to reach the light which leaves them still
  • Farther behind and deeper in the shade.
• • But not the less with impotence of will
  • They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
  • Round them and round each other, and fulfil
• • Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose
  • Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie,
  • And past in these performs what [] in those.
• • Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
  • Half to myself I said—And what is this?
  • Whose shape is that within the car? And why—
• • I would have added—is all here amiss?—
  • But a voice answered—“Life!”—I turned, and knew
  • (Oh Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)
• • That what I thought was an old root which grew
  • To strange distortion out of the hill side,
  • Was indeed one of those deluded crew,
• • And that the grass, which methought hung so wide
  • And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
  • And that the holes it vainly sought to hide,
• • Were or had been eyes:—“If thou canst, forbear
  • To join the dance, which I had well foreborne!”
  • Said the grim Feature of my thought: “Aware,
• • “I will unfold that which to this deep scorn
  • Led me and my companions, and relate
  • The progress of the pageant since the morn;
• • “If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,
  • Follow it thou even to the night, but I
  • Am weary.”—Then like one who with the weight
• • Of his own words is staggered, wearily
  • He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:
  • “First, who art thou?”—“Before thy memory,
• • “I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died,
  • And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
  • Had been with purer sentiment supplied,
• • “Corruption would not now thus much inherit
  • Of what was once Rousseau,—nor this disguise
  • Stained that which ought to have disdained to wear it;
• • “If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
  • A thousand beacons from the spark I bore”—
  • “And who are those chained to the car?”—“The wise,
• • “The great, the unforgotten,—they who wore
  • Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light,
  • Signs of thought’s empire over thought—their lore
• • “Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might
  • Could not repress the mystery within,
  • And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night
• • “Caught them ere evening.”—“Who is he with chin
  • Upon his breast, and hands crost on his chain?”—
  • “The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win
• • “The world, and lost all that it did contain
  • Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
  • Of fame and peace than virtue’s self can gain
• • “Without the opportunity which bore
  • Him on its eagle pinions to the peak
  • From which a thousand climbers have before
• • “Fall’n, as Napoleon fell.”—I felt my cheek
  • Alter, to see the shadow pass away
  • Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak,
• • That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;
  • And much I grieved to think how power and will
  • In opposition rule our mortal day,
• • And why God made irreconcilable
  • Good and the means of good; and for despair
  • I half disdained mine eyes’ desire to fill
• • With the spent vision of the times that were
  • And scarce have ceased to be.—“Dost thou behold,”
  • Said my guide, “those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
• • “Frederic, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,
  • And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage—
  • — name the world thinks always old,
• • “For in the battle, life and they did wage,
  • She remained conqueror. I was overcome
  • By my own heart alone, which neither age,
• • “Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
  • Could temper to its object.”—“Let them pass,”
  • I cried, “the world and its mysterious doom
• • “Is not so much more glorious than it was,
  • That I desire to worship those who drew
  • New figures on its false and fragile glass
• • “As the old faded.”—“Figures ever new
  • Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
  • We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
• • “Our shadows on it as it past away.
  • But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
  • The mighty phantoms of an elder day;
• • “All that is mortal of great Plato there
  • Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not;
  • The star that ruled his doom was far too fair,
• • “And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
  • Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
  • Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.
• • “And near walk the [] twain,
  • The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
  • Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.
• • “The world was darkened beneath either pinion
  • Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
  • Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion;
• • “The other long outlived both woes and wars,
  • Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
  • The jealous key of truth’s eternal doors,
• • “If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not leapt
  • Like lightning out of darkness—he compelled
  • The Proteus shape of Nature as it slept
• • “To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
  • The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
  • See the great bards of elder time, who quelled
• • “The passions which they sung, as by their strain
  • May well be known: their living melody
  • Tempers its own contagion to the vein
• • “Of those who are infected with it—I
  • Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
  • And so my words have seeds of misery”—

[There is a chasm here in the MS. which it is impossible to fill up. It appears from the context, that other shapes pass, and that Rousseau still stood beside the dreamer, as]—

• • — he pointed to a company,
  • Midst whom I quickly recognised the heirs
  • Of Cæsar’s crime, from him to Constantine;
  • The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares
• • Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
  • And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
  • And Gregory and John, and men divine,
• • Who rose like shadows between man and God;
  • Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven,
  • Was worshipped by the world o’er which they strode,
• • For the true sun it quenched—“Their power was given
  • But to destroy,” replied the leader:—“I
  • Am one of those who have created, even
• • “If it be but a world of agony.”—
  • “Whence comest thou? and whither goest thou?
  • How did thy course begin?” I said, “and why?
• • “Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
  • Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought—
  • Speak!”—“Whence I am, I partly seem to know,
• • “And how and by what paths I have been brought
  • To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;—
  • Why this should be, my mind can compass not;
• • “Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;—
  • But follow thou, and from spectator turn
  • Actor or victim in this wretchedness,
• • “And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
  • From thee. Now listen:—In the April prime,
  • When all the forest tips began to burn
• • “With kindling green, touched by the azure clime
  • Of the young year’s dawn, I was laid asleep
  • Under a mountain, which from unknown time
• • “Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;
  • And from it came a gentle rivulet,
  • Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep
• • “Bent the soft grass, and kept forever wet
  • The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
  • With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget
• • “All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,
  • Which they had known before that hour of rest;
  • A sleeping mother then would dream not of
• • “Her only child who died upon her breast
  • At eventide—a king would mourn no more
  • The crown of which his brows were dispossest
• • “When the sun lingered o’er his ocean floor,
  • To gild his rival’s new prosperity.
  • Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
• • “Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee,
  • The thought of which no other sleep will quell,
  • Nor other music blot from memory,
• • “So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell;
  • And whether life had been before that sleep
  • The heaven which I imagine, or a hell
• • “Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,
  • I know not. I arose, and for a space
  • The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,
• • “Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
  • Of light diviner than the common sun
  • Sheds on the common earth, and all the place
• • “Was filled with magic sounds woven into one
  • Oblivious melody, confusing sense
  • Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;
• • “And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence
  • Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
  • And the sun’s image radiantly intense
• • “Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
  • Like gold, and threaded all the forest’s maze
  • With winding paths of emerald fire; there stood
• • “Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
  • Of his own glory, on the vibrating
  • Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
• • “A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling
  • Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,
  • And the invisible rain did ever sing
• • “A silver music on the mossy lawn;
  • And still before me on the dusky grass,
  • Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:
• • “In her right hand she bore a crystal glass,
  • Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour
  • Fell from her as she moved under the mass
• • “Out of the deep cavern, with palms so tender,
  • Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow;
  • She glided along the river, and did bend her
• • “Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow,
  • Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
  • That whispered with delight to be its pillow.
• • “As one enamoured is upborne in dream
  • O’er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist,
  • To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
• • “Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed
  • The dancing foam; partly to glide along
  • The air which roughened the moist amethyst,
• • “Or the faint morning beams that fell among
  • The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
  • And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song
• • “Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,
  • And falling drops, moved to a measure new
  • Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,
• • “Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
  • Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,
  • Dances i’ the wind, where never eagle flew;
• • “And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
  • To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot
  • The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon
• • “All that was, seemed as if it had been not;
  • And all the gazer’s mind was strewn beneath
  • Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,
• • “Trampled its sparks into the dust of death;
  • As day upon the threshold of the east
  • Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath
• • “Of darkness re-illumine even the least
  • Of heaven’s living eyes—like day she came,
  • Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
• • “To move, as one between desire and shame
  • Suspended, I said—If, as it doth seem,
  • Thou comest from the realm without a name,
• • “Into this valley of perpetual dream,
  • Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why—
  • Pass not away upon the passing stream.
• • “Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply.
  • And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand
  • Of dewy morning’s vital alchemy,
• • “I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
  • Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
  • And suddenly my brain became as sand
• • “Where the first wave had more than half erased
  • The track of deer on desart Labrador;
  • Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,
• • “Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,
  • Until the second bursts;—so on my sight
  • Burst a new vision, never seen before,
• • “And the fair shape waned in the coming light,
  • As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
  • From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
• • “Of sun-rise, ere it tinge the mountain tops;
  • And as the presence of that fairest planet,
  • Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes
• • “That his day’s path may end as he began it,
  • In that star’s smile, whose light is like the scent
  • Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
• • “Or the soft note in which his dear lament
  • The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
  • That turned his weary slumber to content;*
• • “So knew I in that light’s severe excess
  • The presence of that shape which on the stream
  • Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
• • “More dimly than a day-appearing dream,
  • The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep;
  • A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam
• • “Through the sick day in which we wake to weep,
  • Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;
  • So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
• • “Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;
  • But the new Vision, and the cold bright car,
  • With solemn speed and stunning music, crost
• • “The forest, and as if from some dread war
  • Triumphantly returning, the loud million
  • Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.
• • “A moving arch of victory, the vermilion
  • And green and azure plumes of Iris had
  • Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
• • “And underneath etherial glory clad
  • The wilderness, and far before her flew
  • The tempest of the splendour, which forbade
• • “Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crew
  • Seemed in that light, like atomies to dance
  • Within a sunbeam;—some upon the new
• • “Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance
  • The grassy vesture of the desart, played,
  • Forgetful of the chariot’s swift advance;
• • “Others stood gazing, till within the shade
  • Of the great mountain its light left them dim;
  • Others outspeeded it; and others made
• • “Circles around it, like the clouds that swim
  • Round the high moon in a bright sea of air;
  • And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
• • “The chariot and the captives fettered there:—
  • But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
  • Fell into the same track at last, and were
• • “Borne onward.—I among the multitude
  • Was swept—me, sweetest flowers delayed not long;
  • Me, not the shadow nor the solitude;
• • “Me, not that falling stream’s Lethean song;
  • Me, not the phantom of that early form,
  • Which moved upon its motion—but among
• • “The thickest billows of that living storm
  • I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
  • Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.
• • “Before the chariot had begun to climb
  • The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
  • Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
• • “Of him who from the lowest depths of hell,
  • Through every paradise and through all glory,
  • Love led serene, and who returned to tell
• • “The words of hate and care; the wondrous story
  • How all things are transfigured except Love;
  • For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,
• • “The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
  • The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—
  • A wonder worthy of his rhyme—the grove
• • “Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
  • The earth was grey with phantoms, and the air
  • Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
• • “A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
  • Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening,
  • Strange night upon some Indian vale;—thus were
• • “Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling
  • Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
  • Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing
• • “Were lost in the white day; others like elves
  • Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
  • Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;
• • “And others sate chattering like restless apes
  • On vulgar hands, * * * * *
  • Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
• • “Of kingly mantles; some across the tire
  • Of pontiffs rode, like demons; others played
  • Under the crown which girt with empire
• • “A baby’s or an ideot’s brow, and made
  • Their nests in it. The old anatomies
  • Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade
• • “Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
  • To reassume the delegated power,
  • Array’d in which those worms did monarchize,
• • “Who make this earth their charnel. Others more
  • Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist
  • Of common men, and round their heads did soar;
• • “Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist
  • On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
  • Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist:—
• • “And others, like discoloured flakes of snow
  • On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,
  • Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
• • “Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were
  • A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
  • In drops of sorrow. I became aware
• • “Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
  • The track in which we moved. After brief space,
  • From every form the beauty slowly waned;
• • “From every firmest limb and fairest face
  • The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
  • The action and the shape without the grace
• • “Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
  • With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,
  • Desire, like a lioness bereft
• • “Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one
  • Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
  • These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
• • “In autumn evening from a poplar tree.
  • Each like himself and like each other were
  • At first; but some distorted seemed to be
• • “Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;
  • And of this stuff the car’s creative ray
  • Wrapt all the busy phantoms that were there,
• • “As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way
  • Mask after mask fell from the countenance
  • And form of all; and long before the day
• • “Was old, the joy which waked like heaven’s glance
  • The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;
  • And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,
• • “And fell, as I have fallen, by the way side;—
  • Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past,
  • And least of strength and beauty did abide.
• • “Then, what is life? I cried.”—

[* ]The favorite song, “Stanco di pascolar le peccorelle,” is a Brescian national air.